Personal Taxation

Personal Taxation Description

Please find below all the articles that have been tagged as 'Personal Taxation'.

Taskforce at Large

Saturday, November 1, 2014

HMRC has set up specialist tax investigation teams to concentrate on recovering unpaid tax from particular business sectors or as a result of tax fraud.

The latest HMRC taskforce teams are looking at:

– fraudulent VAT repayments in the West Midlands and Nottingham areas; and
– property tax evasion in South West England and South Wales.

The property taskforce is using data gathered about property transactions by the Valuation Office in order to target taxpayers who may have sold properties but not declared a capital gain on their tax returns. The same…

Don’t Get a Tax Hangover From Your Christmas Party!

Thursday, October 16, 2014

Here at Morgan Hemp we are keen to keep our clients abreast of news, issues and events to help you keep your finances in order and to make sure you are not losing out.

Heading in to the festive period you are probably making plans for a Christmas party. But have you thought about making sure the big annual celebration isn’t a gift to the taxman?

Entertaining your employees can be allowable for tax relief in your business accounts, and it…

HMRC Launch South Wales Property Taskforce

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

HMRC has this month launched new specialist taskforces designed to target individuals who have not declared rental income or capital gains on property disposals in the South West and South Wales.

The taskforces are part of the Government’s campaign to tackle tax evasion and fraud. HMRC aims to raise an additional £7bn each year through the various taskforces it has launched since May 2011.

It is important to note that the targeting of sectors is not an amnesty and unlike some…

Child Benefit, Tax Penalty Ticking Time Bomb

Friday, September 26, 2014

Government changes to child benefit claims for households where at least one person earns over £50,000 can lead to surprise Self-Assessment penalties, if there is a failure to register for Self-Assessment prior to the 5th October 2014 and your circumstances have changed.

Less than two weeks away!

Consider these two scenario’s

1. You or your partner have received a pay increase in the past year taking your employment income in excess of £50,000, and you continue to receive child benefit. You must…

Tax Tracking App Launched

Monday, September 22, 2014

Morgan Hemp is proud to announce the launch of its ground-breaking smartphone app.

The app, allows individuals and businesses to log their expenses, keep on top of important dates in the annual tax calendar — and in light of recent changes to the VAT system — to accurately log business mileage.

The free app uses the smartphone inbuilt GPS system to allow users to generate a report at the end of each month that can be sent directly on…

Travel Question

Wednesday, September 17, 2014

If you contract through your own personal service company (PSC), you will be an employee of that company and you have to obey the strict tax rules that apply to employees’ travel deductions when claiming expenses from your PSC.

The first rule is that the cost of ordinary commuting cannot be claimed. This is defined as travel to a permanent workplace, which is somewhere attended regularly to perform the duties of the employment. Travel costs to a temporary workplace can be claimed, but the conditions that make a workplace…

Accelerated Payments

Friday, August 1, 2014

The Taxman now has the power to demand tax from you if you have used a registered tax avoidance scheme, or if he thinks the tax scheme you have used is similar to one that has been judged to fail by a Court or Tribunal.

For some years most tax avoidance schemes have been registered under the Disclosure Of Tax Avoidance Scheme (DOTAS) rules. Each scheme was issued with a DOTAS reference number, known as a “DOTAS number” or SRN, which had to be shown on tax returns of…

Maximising Statutory Maternity Pay

Friday, August 1, 2014

Paying statutory maternity pay (SMP) is not optional. It must be paid if your employee qualifies, but the good news is that a small business can recover 103% of the SMP paid from HMRC. A business that pays less than £45,000 of class 1 NICs in one tax year is defined as “small” for this purpose.

In a family business there may be scope for maximising the SMP payable for the first six weeks of maternity leave, and hence getting the Government to refund that SMP with a bit…

Scary Letters

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Have you received a scary letter from HMRC lately? Perhaps all HMRC letters are scary, but this latest nudge-letter really takes the biscuit.

In it HMRC says the taxpayer’s effective rate of income tax is lower than the average for taxpayers with similar levels of income. It goes on to suggest that there could be something wrong with the self-assessment tax return for 2011/12 and the taxpayer should check what they submitted for that year. Penalties and interest are mentioned, which would worry anyone – even those with nothing…

Marginal Tax Rates

Sunday, June 1, 2014

What rate of tax would you pay on an additional £1 of earnings? If your annual income is between £41,865 and £150,000 you may think the tax rate would be 40%, but the peculiarities of the UK tax system mean you could pay much more.

To start with earned income above the 40% threshold carries a national insurance charge (NICs) of 2% so for every £1 you earn above £41,865 (for 2014/15) you will pay 42% in tax and NICs.

Child benefit is withdrawn from the highest earner in the…